Pete Giordano (Psychological Sciences) has accepted an invitation to serve as a member of a guest editorial advisory board for a special issue of PLAT (Psychology Learning and Teaching). PLAT is an international peer-reviewed journal devoted to the sharing of good and innovative learning, teaching and assessment practices. It is published by the Higher Education Academy Psychology Network in the UK. The special issue will focus on cross-cultural issues related to the teaching of psychology.

Dr. Judy Bullington, Professor of Art History and Chair of the Department of Art, received a National Endowment for the Humanities grant to participate in a four-week summer institute at the Bard Graduate Center for Decorative Arts and Design.
Dr. Bullington is one of 18 university faculty members selected nationwide to participate in this institute. Participants will reside at the Bard Graduate Center to allow access to cutting-edge digital resources. The Bard Graduate Center has developed an expertise in this new field through its collaborations with several leading universities and museums, as well as its own staff of innovative practitioners of new media pedagogy and production. Over the course of the program, participants will design and create collaborative new media projects using Omeka in the Bard Graduate Center’s Digital Media Lab (DML). Exhibits will be based upon individual proposals for research projects submitted in conjunction with the initial NEH grant application. The Bard Graduate Center will host that virtual exhibition site and support it after the institute, along with an institute wiki to continue collaboration and consultations.
Dr. Bullington said, “This represents an important opportunity for professional development in terms of my academic field which is 19th century American art history, but I am also excited about the possibilities it creates for enriching the learning experiences of Belmont students who study art history. I hope through the introduction of these new approaches and technologies, more students will be enticed to study art history, a very dynamic and exciting field with viable career opportunities.”
The grant represents a significant opportunity to obtain training in the literature and practice of American material culture studies. The primary focus is on the material culture of the 19th century using New York as a case study because of its role as a national center for fashioning cultural commodities and promoting consumer tastes. Important texts in the scholarship of material culture will be studied in tandem with visiting some of the wonderful collections in and around New York City for hands-on work with artifacts under the guidance of the director of the Bard Graduate Center and curators in those individual institutions. These include the archives and collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Yale University Art Gallery, American Folk Art Museum, the Museum of Chinese in America, the National Museum of the American Indian, the African Burial Ground, The New York Historical Society and the Hudson River Valley Estates of Lyndhurst and Glenview, among others.